Wavemaker strategists Kate O’Laughlin & Summer Treseder won a trip to Cannes Lions this year after winning WPP Media APAC’s Limitless Pitch competition. The duo spent the week seeking out insights (and merch) from the Palais, and reporting back to base. In n this exclusive op-ed, the pair detail the three cultural truths from the festival.
Three things are true of only one place in the world – Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity in the south of France.
We’ve been lucky enough to spend the week at Cannes Lions as part of our prize for winning WPP Media’s Limitless Pitch competition. This experience has been once in a lifetime, so thank you WPP for the opportunity and everyone who took us under their wing while we’ve been here.
Aside from some pretty epic experiences featuring The XX and Mumford & Sons, as well as the +35-degree heat, we’ve been exposed to some of the best work and discussions that the industry has to offer through our time at the Palais.
The content that’s been delivered and the campaigns that have been awarded at this year’s Cannes have revealed some key recurring themes. Whether it’s a response to the rise of AI, or a laser focus on agitating for participation over passivism, three cultural truths have felt impossible to ignore.
The great reality check
Across multiple categories of work in the Cannes Lions, one thing became clear – the value of an honest opinion. As consumers become increasingly distrusting of paid advertising, and the voice of influence continues to be monetised, brands are using the honest crowd-sourced opinions of their customers as a new type of advertising currency.
Two brilliant examples of this in action came from Dove and Samsung.
Rather than produce a series of traditional paid advertising for their new hair mask, Dove r/eal reviews saw the brand give the product to Reddit users and instead used their actual Reddit reviews across a multi-channel media strategy, including social, OOH, and film. Whether it was a good review (“I love it. It’s just as good as the 48 dollar one I have used for years”), or a potentially more negative review (“I have naturally curly hair and this mask said it was “hydrating,” but just wasn’t really doing it for me. Kinda smells like expired hotel shampoo.”), all REAL reviews were featured.
Equally, as part of their The Sponsored Truth campaign, Samsung took real and honest reviews of the GalaxyZ Fold 7 device and used these as their headlines across Google search results. Rather than changing the entire search ad, the headline was simply adjusted. Much like Dove, a mixture of positive reviews (“big where it counts” or “slim and thin”) were used alongside more unfavourable opinions (“overdesigned. overpriced” or “pretty but pricey”).
Both these examples show how brands are recognising that trust is better built by consumers talking about the brand, rather than the brand talking about itself. Equally, the emphasis on real reviews drives attribution back into LLM strategies, which favour audience-led opinions.
Media as a two-way conversation
One of the last sessions we went to during our time at Cannes was a look into the decisions and discussions that informed the Media Lions winners. The “Inside the Jury” panel was with Sindhuja Rai (CCO at WPP Media), Azhar Siddiqui (CEO at Mediaplus Middle East), and Dashni Vilakazi (Managing Director at The MediaShop).
Vilakazi said it best in her comment describing the work she resonated most with – “the real magic in the media category was when campaigns didn’t just reach consumers but when they leveraged them as active participants.”
A brilliant example of this in action was the Could Have Been a Heineken campaign, which addressed user frustration at receiving lengthy WhatsApp voice notes by offering a credit for a free beer when a +3min voice note was shared. By engaging directly with consumers in the media environment where the voice notes where being exchanged, Heineken was able to converse directly with audiences but equally mobilise into real-world action outside the app (and outside the near-podcast level voice notes).
Aside from participation, the jurors talked to the marking rubric, which they laid out months before they even met on the Croisette. Rai, the Jury President for the Media Lions, outlined four clear criteria that they were looking for:
- Deep consumer insight
- A strong and powerful creative idea
- Scale of execution
- Quantifiable results
In an era where media is becoming increasingly reactive and focused on the short-term, the role of scale within the Jury’s analysis was of note. While ‘culturally cool’ ideas that are responsive to a single moment in time are still impactful and of course have their place, there is power in a scaled and sustainable media idea.
You can’t have good without not-so-good
In our opinion, the bravest talk of the festival was led by Lucinda Barlow (Head of International Marketing at Uber) who not only shone a light on the excellent work Uber is doing globally, but also the campaigns that didn’t do so well. We loved this honest reflection, which taught us the power of “jolt” and “tension” – two brand concepts which Lucina coined.
The campaigns which failed to “jolt” focused solely on Uber’s benefits rather than highlighting an unseen villain, such as platforming consumer pain points that Uber could solve via their product offering. Matching this Barlow spoke about the need for a powerful tension, showing campaigns that delivered lower brand results were either “dull, had a lack of connection or played it safe” when compared to successful Uber campaigns which leveraged entertainment, humour, and relatable storytelling.
Barlow’s opinion stands in potentially some of the best stead in the world, with the queen herself (aka Oprah… yep, THAT Oprah) giving a similar point of view. Oprah spoke about the good and not so good on a personal and professional level, with her outtake that disadvantages are not designed to punish us, but rather teach us and grow us into “the fullest, highest expressions of ourselves”.
As we leave Cannes with overstuffed suitcases (we definitely under-estimated the merch), inspired minds, and sore feet, we hope these reflections have been as insightful and rewarding to read as the festival was to experience.
